A Tale Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing
by Alexemata
Summary: I know bad things happened to you before you came to me'...Done before but R&R despite that...please? I'd appreciate it if anyone gave me some feed back! RATING WILL GO UP IN LATER CHAPTERS...
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

Sarah Winters was an unhappy woman. At age 35, she recently discovered that the chance for the "good life" had come and gone and passed her by completely. It was as though one day her deluded mind had woken up from its hazy dream world and she became conscious of the fact that the best time in her life had been high school. Her stomach twisted when she thought of it. She hadn't even been that popular in high school. She was one of those people that was neither a part of the social scene, nor completely rejected by it. She was generally ignored by…well, mostly everyone.

That is not to say she didn't have some good times. She did have her small circle of friends who were constantly surrounded by light and inconsequential drama, just enough to keep things interesting. She went on dates, did fairly well in school, went to the prom, graduated in the middle of her class. It wasn't a fabulous time, but it also wasn't a horrendous time…it was a _good_ time, and that was enough for Sarah.

Thinking back, she remembered how she'd had such plans for herself. Every kid in high school yearns escape, thinking of how much better it'll be in the outside world, thinking about how they'll do something great, something life shattering. Sarah remembered standing in line to receive her diploma, looking around at her peers and making it her goal that one day they would all brag that they use to know her, that at one time they brushed with the greatness of Sarah Winters. Bobby Robertson would tell everyone about how they had been great friends, laughing at the antics of their period five math teacher. And Sarah would remember how Bobby sat in front of her everyday and had never once spoke to her…but that wouldn't matter once she had made something of herself.

She never made anything of herself. Her ten-year reunion came and went without incident. She sat in a hard plastic chair at a tastelessly decorated table littered in cheap confetti and empty plastic cups, looking at the slide show of encapsulated moments from a decade ago. It seemed as though everything was better back then: everyone looked so beautiful and vital, they had been having the time of their lives and no one had realized it—not really. She was 27 and already felt her face sagging, her waist expanding. She sat there as the prom committee gave prizes away to the least changed, the one who changed the most, the most successful, and she swore that by 30 she would make something of herself. Then when the 20-year reunion swung around, it would be her who would be waltzing up to the stage to receive her award. She clenched her plastic cup harder, sloshing the overly sweet punch over the side and onto her off-the-rack cocktail dress. She would do it…age 30…

And now she was 35 and nothing had changed. Sarah sat at her discounted dining room table and looked over the slightly burnt pot roast at her husband, Roy. This was the accumulation of her life; everything she had, everything she was, wrapped up in this man. Her cold blue eyes scanned over him as he shoved store bought mashed potatoes into his mouth. After years of being forced to shop in second hand and discount stores, her gaze was expertly trained to detect small problems: snags, stains, missing pieces, etc. And as she looked at Roy, she couldn't help but run over the list she had already complied in her head, mentally adding a tick next to each item as she passed it. Receding hairline: check. Lingering acne: check. Increasingly wild nose and ear hairs: check. That stupid tattoo on his beefy, pasty white arm that he had gotten on a lark one night out with "the boys": check. Swelling beer gut: check. The list ran on, and Sarah's thin lips twisted into a grimace of disgust as she went through it, almost unwillingly. It's not that she wanted to know these things…it's that she couldn't help herself from noticing them. Roy paused and looked up at his wife, his fork laden with green beans half way up to his wet, open mouth.

"What, you don't like the food?" He asked, gesturing with his fork to her untouched plate. She sat and stared stonily at him before pushing her plate away from her with a long, bony finger,

"I'm not hungry…" He looked at her for a moment longer before deciding he was too damn tired to put up with her shit, and to let it go for tonight. He reached into the middle of the table and grabbed the awaiting remote control, turning on the T.V. he had recently installed in the dining room against his wife's wishes. She had felt it would be a distraction; he had wanted it for the same reason.

Sarah watched with loathing as the hated black box flickered to life with blue light, illuminating her husband. Sighing audibly she scraped her chair backwards and plodded out of the room, wandering up the stairs to the second floor of their townhouse.

"You better get back here to do the dishes—remember the guy and the new kid are coming…" Roy called up to her, making her cringe and scowl. She hadn't remembered, and the reminder hit her with a wave of depression. Roy and Sarah were foster parents, which meant the kid coming tonight was going to the 8th child that had passed through their doors, and would most likely cycle back out in a matter of weeks.

"Thank God," she muttered aloud. It wasn't that the kids were particularly horrible, the plain and simple reason of it was that Roy and Sarah just didn't like children. Which begs the question of why they were foster parents at all in the first place.

It was Sarah who had first raised the idea, and though Roy was against it, she eventually wore him down with consistent nagging and harassment. Eventually what won him over was when she sneeringly reminded him of the fact that it was because of him that they didn't have any children of their own. He looked up at her from his position on the worn out lazy-boy, his eyes glittering with contempt and had said:

"Fine, do whatever you want…now will you move so I can watch some fucking football?"

Sarah had been content with her victory, and looked eagerly toward the coming of their first foster child. She had felt good about herself for the first time in a long time. Maybe this was who she was supposed to be. Maybe this was her calling: Sarah Winters, philanthropist, or: Sarah Winters, savior of lost children…however, her rose colored vision was soon snapped back into reality when the children actually began arriving. Sarah was disheartened to find that the children repulsed her, and only lasted a couple of days before she could no longer stand the sight of them and forced Roy to send them back. She always came up with some excuse, that they were stealing, or doing drugs, or getting into fights…and when they left Sarah felt a weight lift off her, and swore never to do it again. But then the static, monotonous tone of the everyday seeped in, and she found herself wondering if, maybe it wasn't so bad when the kids were here…why not try it again? A vicious cycle.

She stood in front of the full-length mirror in her bedroom, staring at herself. Her scrupulous eye now turned inward and she critically examined herself. Her blond hair was too dark at the roots, her breasts too small, her stomach too flabby. She wasn't completely unfortunate looking, but far from attractive. Just like high school, neither high, nor low, just somewhere in the middle.

How had she gotten here? She listened with disgust to Roy's barking laughter at the T.V. He hadn't always been that bad had he? There must have been a time when she loved him enough to consider spending the rest of her life with him. But the voice in the back of her head whispered a reminder: you settled…you settled because you were afraid of being alone forever…you settled because you knew you wouldn't find anyone to take you…

She sat down on the un-made bad and placed her head into her hands. Even more then her disgust at her husband, was her yearning for love. Roy hadn't touched his wife in more then two years…she was 35, and a 35 year old woman has needs that must be met, even if it was by the beast of a man sitting in the dining room. She felt that if something didn't happen soon, she would do something drastic…what that was, she wasn't exactly sure…

Her husband's voice broke through the stream of thoughts flying through her mind.

"The fucking dishes still aren't done!" Her mouth hardened into a straight line and she made her way back down into the kitchen.

------

Half an hour later she placed the last glass into the cupboard just as the doorbell rang. She sighed and wiped her hands on the torn dishtowel before tossing it onto the counter and heading towards the front door.

"Here we go…" she muttered to herself, mentally bracing herself. Being used to the runty, greasy kids of 8 or 9 who were usually sent her way; she was completely unprepared for the person who appeared on the other side of the door. The young man who stood before her was about 16 or 17, and was probably the most beautiful person Sarah Winters had ever seen up close. Those shrewd eyes of hers finally alighted on something that was not perpetually flawed, and she relished in looking him over.

He was tall, probably a bit taller then 6 feet, Sarah guessed, measuring him against her and seeing that he was only a few inches taller then herself. But his height might have been skewed by his hair, which was dark blond and spiked in a way she had never witnessed before, twisting up from the crown of his head en masse in a gravity-defying manner. His height was also exaggerated by his slenderness; he had the body of a swimmer, or a model, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. He stood before her with his arms folded across his chest, hugging his worn leather jacket closer to himself in a vain attempt to keep out the cold. She swiftly took in his faded jeans pulled down slightly on one side with chains, and his tattered black boots, before settling on his face, which was sharp and angular; the defined lines pronounced by the grayish crimson pallor caused by the cold Detroit wind.

His sharp blue eyes met hers for an instant before he looked down at his feet, unable to hold her intense gaze for very long. Sarah stood there, her hand on the door, looking at this stunning person on her front porch, and couldn't think of a thing to say. The silence was broken by a winded voice calling out,

"Mrs. Winters!" Sarah tore her eyes away from the boy to look behind him at the short, portly man hurrying up the sidewalk to the house. Slipping and sliding on the snow-covered pathway, he finally reached the front door. "I apologize…for our… lateness…" he wheezed out, slightly bent over trying to catch his breath.

"It's fine Mr. Barrett," Sarah said before directing her attention back to the other person who stood before her, who was now pointedly looking sideways at a fixed spot on the front lawn.

Barrett glanced up at the boy, who towered over him, and slapped him on the back. "Well don't just stand there! Did you introduce yourself to Mrs. Winters?" The boy looked down at the man who's hand still rested on his back with a stoic and unreadable look and shook his head. He glanced up at Sarah and muttered,

"Jack…" Sarah looked from him to Mr. Barrett with a raised eyebrow, and when Barrett shrugged helplessly, Sarah opened the door wider and stepped aside, saying lightly,

"Well, come on in, Jack!" As he moved past her into the house, looking around slightly, Sarah struggled to suppress the thoughts that immediately sprang into her head. Thoughts of what she would like to do with this boy if she could. He rested his hand against the wall to steady himself as he kicked off his shoes and she imagined shoving him against the wall, and throwing herself into his arms, running her hands through his hair as her mouth met his…

Her reverie was broken as Barrett stumbled in after Jack, stamping the cold out of his feet and brushing the snow off of his jacket.

"It is COLD out there," he remarked loudly, and Sarah held out her hands for his jacket, saying:

"Would you like to stay for a while Mr. Barrett? I could put on some tea…?"

"Oh no, no, no…" Barrett held up his hands, "I can't stay, I'm behind as it is-two more kids out in the car…but I would like to speak to you…for a minute…in private…?" They both looked at Jack, who looked back, and then uncomfortably at the floor. Sarah finally noticed the bag resting at Barrett's feet, which he had lugged from the car and said,

"Jack, why don't you take your bag up to your room…it's up the stairs, first door on your right." He nodded and grabbed his bag, before heading up the stairs. Sarah watched him go and then turned back to Barrett. "What is it?" she asked coldly, her warm motherly tone suddenly gone Barrett faintly noticed before turning to a file he had tucked beneath his arm.

"Well Mrs. Winters, you should know that Jack had a hard time in the last house he was in…there was an…ummm…_incident_, shall we say?" Sarah thought of the boy upstairs, sitting on one of her beds, on the sheets she washed, and became impatient.

"Yes, and?"

"Well, you should know that he might give you some trouble…I know you've had trouble with some of the children before, and-"

"Well Mr. Barrett, those children were thieves, hooligans-I won't tolerate that in my house-"

"Yes, well, of course-"

"Jack is…older, Mr. Barrett, so I'm sure he will be more able to control those impulses?"

"Well, perhaps, but-"

"Then I think we should be just fine. Didn't you say you had to be going?" She opened the door for him and guided him toward it with a hand on his back.

"Well yes," he mumbled, "I guess I should be going,"

"Alright then!" she said, her elated tone returning, "Thank you, and have a good night!" His reply was cut short as she shut the door. She paused and rested her head against it, taking a deep breath. She slowly turned, and then pushed her weight away from the door, walking slowing over to the staircase and looking up. As her foot fell on the first step, Roy called out to her,

"Is he here? Sarah! What the hell!" she continued walking up the stairs, and quietly answered,

"Yes, I'm just going to see if he's…okay…" She reached the top step and stood looking toward the first door on the right. It was slightly ajar and she crept toward it slowing, and looked in.

Jack had thrown his bag on the bed and was sitting next to it, his head in his hands. She wondered what had happened to him, the "incident" Barrett had mentioned. He stood suddenly and took off his jacket, and then the t-shirt underneath which was slightly wet from the snow outside. As she watched him, stripped to the waist, searching through his bag for another shirt, she suddenly didn't care what had happened to him. She only knew she wanted him, and she would do anything to have him…anything.


	2. Chapter 2

AUTHOR'S NOTE: hey ya'll! I just wanted to say WOW! And also THANK YOU SO MUCH to all of the people who left me wonderful comments for the first chapter of this story. I really feel like I let you guys down by taking so long to post this next chapter, because seriously, your reviews made me more happy then you'll ever know! Any continued support and/or constructive criticism you could scrounge up for me would really help me get the next chapter up faster (wink wink), but again, I feel like I don't deserve it after the HUGE delay in getting chapter 2 in here…

But here it is anyway—hope you guys are still around and still enjoying it!

Oh, but first: I feel like I should give a special shout out to electricxrain who added me to her C2 group, and to Nimue26 who suggested my story to her…you guys are awesome!

ALSO: props go to Shakespeare for the title of this story…it comes from the beautiful soliloquy in Act 5 of MacBeth…it's so awesome, you guys should check it out if you don't know what I'm talking about…I guess I should have put that in the first chapter…oops…

If this chapter seems a bit confusing, I wanted it that way…I'm not going to give EVERYTHING away in chapter TWO…geeze…haha

OK! Enough rambling—thanks again, I love you all!

Chapter Two

It was hot. Hot enough to kick the blankets off and still feel enveloped in heat. He didn't understand how he could feel so oppressed by the hot air on the outside, and yet still feel so cold on the inside. He lay on the bed motionless until he couldn't take it anymore, and jumping off the bed, pulled his New York Dolls t-shirt over his head and used it to wipe some of the sweat off of his forehead.

The heat made him angry for some reason. He felt irrationally frustrated about it, and the fact that he recognized that it was irrational irritated him more. He looked down at his hands and realized he was clenching the shirt, his knuckles white from the tense pressure. He quickly threw the shirt across the room, where it smacked the wall and slid to the floor, a black and crumpled witness to his anxiety. Sighing heavily he sat down again on the edge of the bed, running his hands wearily through his hair.

Jack was a person who adapted to circumstance. Most people would look at him, at his life and suppose it was because experience had trained him to be that way. Jack saw it as something he was born with, as though something or someone out there (if there was someone out there) had looked at him, and the life he was about to lead, and thought "Shit…that kid's going to need _something_…or else…" And he had always prided himself on his ability to go anywhere, and suffer anything without much consequence.

But lately, he had felt his resolve and hardened shell beginning to melt. He had used to feel as though nothing could touch him within the walls he had carefully constructed. But now there were holes…and they were widening…and God, it hurt when the cold slipped in.

He rubbed his hands over his face and forced the thoughts away from him. The dark, shadowed thoughts that crept up silently, flicking their forked tongues in his ear, whispering ever so softly,

_Remember_.

But he didn't want to…and he wouldn't when he refused to…but he knew full well it would all catch up with him eventually, in the still of night, when he drifted away into the subconscious…

All that would come later though. For now, he shook off the shade that had begun to wind its arms around him, and lay back down on the pillows, thinking of trivial things. He thought of the people who slept in the room down the hallway. The Winters. Why the fuck their name was Winters when they blasted the heat so damn much…But they seemed like decent enough people. Roy pretty much ignored him, which was fine with him. The hulking man seemed more interested in the soulless comfort of the television then by any of the people around him. That is, except on the nights where he went out drinking with his buddies and would come back sloppy and brazen. Jack had made the mistake of being downstairs once when Roy fell in the front door, his greasy, shit-faced friends laughing on the front porch. He remembered the sharp-toothed smiles and the glinting eyes as the men noticed him, and the way his body immediately stiffened and went numb as Roy through his huge arm around Jack's shoulders and shoved him in introduction towards two equally huge men, who's names he had instantly forgot. After managing to worm his way out of the drunken attention which mainly focused on his tattoos, he decided he wouldn't go downstairs at night again, no matter how thirsty he was. No, he liked it better when Roy ignored him.

And then there was Sara. He wasn't exactly sure how he felt about Sara. She seemed nice enough…or rather, more nice then the other false mothers that he had been shoved upon, women who were either too wrapped up in their own lives, or the lives of the other children in the house, to deal with him. To them he had been just one more mouth to feed, one more load of laundry. And he had been okay with that…or at least he had grown accustomed to it, the idea that he was no more then a number. But now, he didn't know how to react to Sara. She seemed to devote herself to him, making sure his every need was met, his every whim achieved. He didn't ask her for much, and yet she was constantly hovering, prying into him, trying to make him happy. It was draining, and he had begun to avoid her at all costs, staying in his room, or wandering the suburban streets of their Detroit neighborhood even though it was sometimes unbearably cold. It had come to the point where he would rather face the prospect of frostbite, then to have to look at that woman's thin, affection-starved face and bite back the words that had recently pushed their way forward to the tip of his tongue: leave me the fuck alone!

There had been a time when he craved this kind of attention. But he wasn't a little boy anymore. Things had changed. Now he just wanted her to go away.

There was something about her though…something he couldn't quite place his finger upon…He saw it when he looked at her, when he looked into her cold, appraising eyes. While she seemed to physically exude the aura of a matriarchal figure--the loving, doting mother--her eyes were coolly aloof. And beneath that cool surface, something else existed, something…_other_…and it was something that made him uncomfortable. Something that he knew he wouldn't like if he discovered its true nature. It was times like these, when he thought about Sara in the quiet of the night that he felt unsettled, and considered that maybe he escaped her not because of her smothering, but because of what he feared was in those eyes…

Sleep crept up on him suddenly and without his consent. And though he struggled against it, it naturally won, and his eyes grew heavy, and his unconscious took over. And the thoughts that he had been running from all day sprang forward in his mind, as they did every night.

_A dark room_

_His hand reaching for the lights, a voice whispering_ "No…"

_Hesitation_

"Come sit with me Jack…"

_A red guitar_

_A loaded gun_

_A question_

"Do you know why he painted it red?"

_Fear, anxiety, frustration, yearning, powerlessness_

_Pleading, what are you doing? Why are you doing this? Please, please, don't…_

_Words that are never said_

_An explosion--_

Jerking awake, Jack realized he was sweating, and this time, not from the heat. He knew that it was going to happen, and yet, as always, he was unprepared for it when did. But something was wrong. Something woke him up. He hadn't reached the conclusion, the grand finale, the part that echoed in his mind most clearly…

Still gasping for breath, he sat up slightly and looked around. There, standing by the door, a figure dressed in white linen. He squinted and rubbed his eyes, and then sat up completely. Looking back at the figure, he could see now that it was Sara, her gaunt frame lightly illuminated by the moonlight pouring through the plastic blinds on his window.

"Sara?" he said quietly, his voice cracking slightly from a night of silence. She didn't speak. He waited for a moment, and then continued, "Is something wrong?"

She fidgeted at the door way awhile and then suddenly stepped into the room, closing the door quietly behind her. She turned back to him, her face shadowed, giving no reasons for why she was there. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, but remained seated, and tried again, "Sara?"

"No!" she burst out in a harsh whisper, her voice breathless and excited, a tone he'd never heard from her before. She was usually so controlled. She stepped forward again, rapidly closing the space between them, and as she moved, her face was abruptly bathed in light again. And Jack saw that latent emotion, the one that had been hiding behind her eyes since the moment he met her suddenly pour out across her face. Adoration, lust, _desire_…sweeping forward and catching up her rigid mouth, her flushed cheeks…and he had never been so afraid of a woman.

Before he could react, she was right in front of him, her long, cold fingers on his bare chest, pushing him back onto the bed. Her body pressing forward on top of his, her face next to his ear murmuring, "I've wanted this for so long…so long Jack…I know you've wanted it too…" and then her hands were running down his chest, and her face was above his and she was pressing her lips on his…

And then he snapped out of the part of his mind that was trying to understand what was going on. All he knew was that he wanted this to stop…_now_. He grasped her shoulders and shoved her off of him, off of his bed, and onto the floor. He scrambled back, kneeling on the lumpy mattress, the disheveled sheets, his shoulders against the wall, as though the bed was his fortress, and if he pressed hard enough into the wall, he would tumble through it and away from this mess. She looked at him with wide, uncomprehending eyes, her mouth hanging slightly open. She slowly got to her feet, and stood for a moment, looking at him with that stupid, agape expression.

"Jack…?" she finally uttered, and stepped forward, her arms extended toward him.

"No!" he exploded, flinging one hand out in front of himself, the other pressing palm down into the wall, waiting, wishing, praying, that it would let him melt into it. "No," he said again, more quietly, his breath coming in wheezes. He shut his eyes and struggled to calm down. He opened his eyes again and looked at her, not trying to veil the shock and disgust he felt, "just…just stay away from me…"

"But-" she began again, inching closer to him, and as she got closer he saw her face shimmering with her last remnant of hope. He felt sick.

"No." He said again, this time with solid and forceful power behind it. He lowered the hand that was held up between them to his side. Again he said the only words that come to mind, stressing each one, trying to break through her false hope, "Stay. Away. From. Me."

It worked. Her face fell as her original expectations fluttered away in broken pieces. But what was left in its place scared him. He could still see desire, yes, still burning beneath her pale skin, but now it was mixed with anger and rejection…and determination.

"Fine." She said, her voice hardening. She turned on her heel and walked toward his door. When she got there she looked at him over her shoulder, her hand resting on the doorknob. "You'll be sorry…" And he could hear the broken pride of a woman scorned and he didn't doubt her words. She turned back toward the door, head held high in a vain attempt to retain some semblance of dignity, and opened, stepped through and closed the door it all in one swift movement.

Once she was gone, Jack collapsed into a sitting position on his bed. He pulled his knees up and rested his head against them, trying to regain control of his breathing. He couldn't quite believe what just took place, and yet it seemed to fit in perfectly with everything that had happened in his fucked up existence so far. He wrapped his arms around his knees and breathed deeply. He was clear on all the details of his past, no matter how shitty or disturbing or heartbreaking they were. What came next, he wasn't sure…


	3. Chapter 3

Numb. It was a strange sort of numbness, tempered with seething anger and hurt. And there was lust; was there ever a lustful desire that she couldn't shake. All these things she felt at once, and then in turn one more then the other, standing outside his bedroom, walking back to hers, each wave of emotion growing stronger each time it arrived and swept over her.

Walking down the hallway and back to the darkness of the bedroom that housed her sweaty boor of a husband might have been the most difficult thing she ever had to do. As she sat down gingerly on her side of the bed, sick rejection seeped through her body like a poison. Flashes of herself whirled through her mind's eye: vomiting in the bathroom, dragging a stake knife across her skin, throwing herself out of the second story window onto the chain link fence below. A world of opportunities. In one brief moment she had touched perfection, brushing her hands along his skin, crushing her lips into his. Her body had screamed out; this was all she had thought about since he had arrived, and when it was finally happening, she had wanted more, her desire rushing through her like a wave.

And then it was over, and she saw on his face the disgust and abhorrence she so often felt in herself, she so often felt was reflected in others when they looked at her. Coming from him it was another thing all together. For days she had watched him, had bided her time, feeling as though the sheer _want _she felt would burn holes in him, or conversely, incinerate her from the inside out. His mere movement, full of both grace and introversion, filled her with visions of cool sheets and his long limbs entwined around her; and in the darkness, in the quiet, the sound of him breathing next to her…

It was there and then it was gone, and the repulsion on his face seemed almost more then she could take. Moving slowly, she shifted to lie down on the bed, rigid and straight like a dead person. After a while, Roy rolled over and threw a heavy arm across her. Pinned, and seething with self-loathing, the events of the last ten minutes replayed themselves in her head. She hated herself, and her mundane existence and her husband and everyone who thought she was nothing and especially the fact that they were right. But most of all she hated him. Hated and wanted at the same time, the hatred sharpening the desire all the more so that it seemed to stick into her body like a cold knife. Looking at the man next to her and seeing nothing but a huge waste of a life, she suddenly realized what she had to do. Roy grunted and rolled over again, removing the offending arm from her body that was quivering with excitement. 'Yes', she thought, feeling the desire rise up in her like a flame. For the first time in her life, Sara Winters felt as though she was in control of her own life. And for the first time, she was going to get what she wanted.

* * *

He awoke with a start the next morning, sitting up slightly in bed and looking around. He didn't know when or how he had fallen asleep again, but somehow he had and his dreams had been thankfully free of his regular nightmares. Somehow, that godsend seemed small in comparison with what he now faced. He dressed quickly, grabbing whatever clothes were close at hand and glanced at the clock. Six in the morning seemed early enough to avoid running into his foster parents, so he slipped out of his room, pulled on his boots and jacket and quietly left the house through the backdoor.

He wasn't sure what he expected. At worst, things would be enormously awkward and embarrassing for a long time. Or they would send him elsewhere, to another foster home, another way station along the road leading toward his 18th birthday. He preferred the latter, though a new foster home was always an opportunity for a new variation of hell. He hoped that Sarah would allow him to stay and would quit doting on him. His best-case scenario was to be utterly ignored until the time in which he could step out the door, autonomous.

There was though, a flickering shadow in the back of his mind, sparked by the memory of her face at the door before she turned to leave. Something dark there, and untouchable, and he didn't know how deep and far that darkness would extend. He had seen this same darkness before, in another place and within another person. A different mask, but the same darkness nonetheless. And he knew how it could engulf, and destroy.

A Red Guitar

An explosion

The blossoming of colour—

He stopped and pressed the heel of his hands against his eyes. In the harsh white light of the morning, between the piles of dirty snow, the memories were easier to suppress. He wearily made his way over to a bench along the frozen pathway and slumped down onto the sodden wood. Leaning forward onto his knees, he ran his hands over his face and through his hair. Why was this happening to him? It wasn't the first time the question had scuttled across his mind. He reached into the pocket of his leather jacket and removed a carton of cigarettes, pulling one out and lighting it in a fluid motion, protecting his face against the harsh wind. As he inhaled deeply, he pushed the thought away angrily. It pissed him off, these moments of self pity, the whining voice inside his head, echoing '_why me?_'

Still, with everything that had happened within the last year swirling around his head, he couldn't help but wonder. It might have been the smoke settling into his lungs but suddenly he found it very hard to breathe. And to his alarm, he felt the familiar pulse of tears behind his eyes. He stood up swiftly and kicked the bench in irritation, his foot coming down through the layers of graffiti, obliterating the seat. He stood for a moment taking another drag of the cigarette and looking down on the destruction he had caused in the cool light of the morning. The tears were gone. So was the pity. It felt good to be destruction for a change, instead of the destroyed. He turned and continued down the path, wondering how else he could kill time.

* * *

Hours later, he was standing in front of the house again. The two stories of grey concrete loomed over-head, staring him down with black window eyes. He shifted his feet and looked up and down the road, the countless other matching houses looking like an army, stuck together in endless rows, ready to turn and crush him into tiny pieces. The wind snapped at his face and he hunched down further into his leather jacket. He almost wished they would, he wanted to be obliterated so that he wouldn't have to go back into the house in front of him. It was Sunday. He didn't think of Detroit as a particularly religious town, but instead something built on blood and ash and steel. Yet, somehow, this godless city was a ghost town on a Sunday morning, all buildings dark and deserted until the afternoon. It was eleven and he had been walking around for five hours in the frigid February morning, and when the soft creases of his jacket had become rigid and frozen, he decided that he had had enough.

So here he was. Home sweet home. Shifting his weight from foot to foot, and trying to decide if freezing to death was better then going back into that house. He saw the curtains in the second story window twitch and he sighed. He had been seen. No other option now. He slowly made his way up the path to the front door, his mind becoming as numb as his body.

Upon entering, he felt that something was different. The house was quiet. Looking into the living room, the television sat blankly and silently in the corner. The room looked bizarrely tranquil without Roy's bulky frame sprawled across the lazy boy, the flickering green light dancing across the walls. The whole house seemed hushed, as though it was holding its breath in anticipation, like the sky before a storm, clouds swollen and quietly rolling, waiting to burst open.

He looked down at his boots, frozen and covered in salt and sand and debated putting them back on and fleeing into the street again. He skin had begun to thaw and it stung. His hair dripped dirty water into his face and a thought erupted into his stream of consciousness, 'Is anything in this city clean?' This calm house, his body humming, the wood of the front door creaking as the wind pushed against it, it was a whirlpool of instinct and emotion, sweeping him away. He shook his head, trying to get his bearings, and clear his mind of the bleary, pulsating train of thought. Something was wrong but his tried and snow addled mind was struggling to grasp it.

A sudden noise from the top of the stairs ground everything to a halt. He looked up and saw Sarah standing there, shadowed and still, looking down at him. They both stood silently for an instant, a single, beating moment, and he thought his heart had stopped. She opened her mouth and shattered the stillness of the house, her voice shrill and reedy, calling out for something he couldn't quite comprehend. He realized what it was in the next moment, as Roy's frame suddenly stood in front of him in the kitchen doorway, the artificial light behind him outlining his body, but obscuring his face.

Roy shifted and came toward him. Everything seemed to move in slow motion, and he felt immobile, his mind reeling forward, but his body rigid and planted even though every instinct screamed at him to run away. Everything suddenly snapped into motion as Roy grabbed him by his jacket, the cold leather cracking, and turned, slamming him up against the wall, the drywall shuddering slightly with the impact. Startled, his hands grabbed at Roy's trying to loosen their grip, but Roy only tightened his fingers, shaking him slightly and pushing his unshaven face forward.

"Did you touch my wife?" He breathed it into his face, the words and his breath a sour whisper of air. His mind reeled. _What_? Roy's eyes narrowed, staring blackly into him, and he shook him again, throwing his body back against the wall with more force.

"Boy! You better answer my fucking question-" Jarred by the impact, he barked out,

"No!" his voice sounding high and unnatural to his ears. Roy paused, looking at him, his mind working, as if weighing his options. He licked his lips and spat, "Wrong answer" before lifting him off the wall and hurling him down the hallway, his body's momentum halting abruptly as it came into contact with a small wooden table.

The wood splintered and seemed to burst as his mind inanely mused at the purpose of such a table in an otherwise vacant hallway. As his mind wandered, adrenaline coursed through his body, screaming at him to get up GET UP and fight, but before he could find his feet, a foot connected with his ribcage. He heard, rather then felt the crack as one of his ribs broke, and he collapsed to the ground again, gasping for air. Looking up, he saw Roy looming above him, and, too late! his fist hurling downwards to connect with his face. He had been in fights before—being a child of the foster care system, fighting equaled surviving—but this caught him so unaware, and Roy was twice his size, he felt a sick feeling of desperation wash over him, as he realized that the time to fight was gone. Never in his life had he been afraid of dying, but as Roy's fist came down, again and again, he thought 'This is it' and he was overcome with fear.

As the pain radiated and numbed him, and his mind buzzed with thoughts of never-ending dark, he didn't even notice when the blows stopped coming. He was brought to his senses when a hand was placed on his face, fingers tracing lines through the blood there, and then running upwards into his hair, slowly, and gently smoothing the wet strands. He was aware suddenly of the incomprehensible muttering of the television and realized that Roy was gone. Opening one eye, he saw Sarah kneeling next to him, looking down at his face, her hand mindlessly wandering over his body. He groaned and rolled away toward the wall, her touch repulsing him. He struggled to sit up, but she suddenly snapped into motion, her long fingers pushing him down, digging into his broken rib so that he collapsed back to the ground with the strangled shout. Her fingers then gripped his chin, smearing the blood there, nails digging into his flesh and turning his face toward hers. She leaned closer to him, and making sure he was looking her right in the eye, said,

"I told you." And then she smiled, and it frightened him even more than the physical brutality of what he had just endured. She looked at him expectantly, but he couldn't think of a thing to say. "I told you you'd be sorry," she continued, as though explaining herself to a child. Leaning closer to him, her breath crawling across his skin, she whispered in his ear, "Maybe next time you won't be so quick to say no." She pulled back, and her words resounded in his ears, echoing like bells, word against word and he felt himself drowning in realization. She saw it in his eyes and smiled again. And then she kissed him. And suddenly dying didn't seem so bad.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Hey. So it's been a long time since I updated this. So much has changed, and I lost touch with writing for a while. But recently some people reviewed this story, and it made me come back and read over some of the stuff I had written already…so I decided to finish up this chapter and post it. I can't stand leaving stuff incomplete. If this chapter seems choppy, it's because I wrote half of it about a year ago…I wrote it and rewrote it so many times...i felt like it needed to be amazing because of how long it is in coming, but finally I had to just let it go--so I apologize if it's a piece of crap. I'm fairly certain that I've lost the interest of most of the lovely people who reviewed for the last chapter, but if you are still there, and still reading, I'd appreciate you letting me know. I know I probably don't even deserve to ask that, but I promise that if someone out there is still reading this, and wants me to continue, then I will update it, and it will be MUCH sooner rather then later.

Thank you so much for all the amazing things you guys wrote me previously. I know things might be confusing right now, but everything will be revealed in due course. I apologize again for how late this is in coming. If you're still out there, thanks for sticking with me!


	4. Chapter 4

Amongst the whispers in the hall, and the hum of the television in front of him, he heard the boy get to his feet. He heard the pieces of the broken table gathered up. Heard the boy limp past the doorway and up the stairs. He wanted to look over but was unable to look away from the commercial currently whirling in front of him, phosphorescent and technicolored. So he stared forward, eyes unhinged, and pretended that fabric softener was more interesting then the 16-year-old boy he had just beat the shit out of.

He clenched and unclenched his hands, raw skin pulling over bruised knuckles. Now on the screen: a sleek black car gliding through an illuminated city. He had never understood cars, though he had pretended to. He sat there and struggled to understand why this one was so great, better then all the others. Struggled to understand the reasons why he should care about this car.

She had told him during the game, and he had been pissed at her. Her long, fervent fingers prodding at him until he snapped his head in her direction and growled, 'what?' She knew better then to disturb him during a game, and her very presence made his skin crawl. But when he saw her face, so very pale, her eyes red and wide and pleading, he suddenly held his tongue. In all their years of being married, he had never, not once, seen her this way. She was…vulnerable. And it unsettled him.

He tried again, and asked, "what", softer this time, calmer, though he felt as though he was speaking around his stomach, lodged suddenly into his throat. She worked her hands, pulling on her fingers nervously, but all the while staring him straight in the eyes. He swallowed, suddenly aware of his heart beating out of his chest, and spoke again, "Sara, what is it?"

And then she told him. Told him the kid he had been feeding and housing and keeping off the goddamn street had tried to fuck his wife. Every bitter resentment he felt toward her, her nagging and belittling, was all swept away in that moment. She was his wife. She was _his wife. _And she was kneeling in front of him, clutching his arm and crying, goddamn crying, and all he could do was sit there and let her words wash over him. And when they had, he turned off the TV, and turned to her and said, "I'm going to make this right."

And he had. Hadn't he? He had done what any man would do. The kid was lucky he hadn't killed him. He hadn't even thrown him out into the street. The kid tried to sleep with his wife, under his roof…the very thought dredged the anger up, washing bleary redness into his eyes, blurring the program already in progress, though what he was watching, he couldn't even remember. On screen a family was sitting down to dinner, father mother, son and daughter. Perfect and complete. A life he had never, and would never be a part of.

He felt sick. Lurching out of his worn armchair, he stumbled towards the front door. Taking a minute to hall his boots out of the closet and force his feet into them, he glanced up. Sara was there, stiff and solemn, staring at him with blank eyes. She said nothing, and neither did he, as he turned and forced the door open, his boots unlaced, his jacket half on, and stumbled out into the night.

He found himself, later, in a bar. After driving around for a while, he wasn't even sure what bar he was in, but somehow it didn't seem to matter. It was warm, and full of smoke, and more importantly, serving alcohol. He downed honey brown liquid until the worn wood in front of him was decorated in tall, empty glasses and lost droplets of foam. That was when he switched to whiskey.

Glass after glass passed through his fingers. He had expected the liquor to numb himself to his feelings, but instead they amplified everything he had hoped to escape from. He saw the kid's face flicker in front of him, eyes wide and uncomprehending. Saw that same expression shattered beneath his fist. A voice in the back of his head pleading ceaselessly, _He's just a kid, just a kid… _until he couldn't take it anymore. The glass in his hand cracked as the tension he didn't even know he was feeling was released physically. The bartender looked up at him, opened her mouth to say those finite words,

"Listen, I think you've had enough…" But he knew it was coming, and was already standing up. He steadied himself on the bar as all the alcohol rushed to his head, and his knees and threw some money on the counter as he turned to leave.

He wasn't sure how he managed to get home, but one thing was certain: he had forgotten to open the garage door. As he stood in the frigid air of 4 am, watching snowflakes fall gently onto the mangled hood of his truck, he was also sure of one other thing. This was the kid's fault.

* * *

It took a little over two weeks for the pain to diminish to a dull roar. Fifteen days of waking up in the middle of the night with a flinch, body throbbing, scabs cracking slightly, muscles pulling the wrong way; all of this secondary to the fear that she would be standing in the doorway, her smile a visible twinkle in the moonlight.

But fifteen nights had passed and she was never there. He was beginning to think that he had imagined her threat. That the poisonous words flicked into his ear were merely the manifestation of getting punched in the head one time too many. But something about the way those words still resonated in his mind told him they were not a figment of his imagination. That the line between his nightmares and the real world was beginning to blur, and soon reality would cease to exist.

He had contemplated going to the authorities, or to his caseworker, or to anybody, really, for help, but it was painfully obvious that Sara had control over the situation. She was the dutiful housewife, he was the troubled delinquent. In fact, he could see the only outcome of that scenario being his incarceration. And he wasn't sure he could handle jail right now, or some run down juvenile detention center, where he would end up with a tooth brush shank between the ribs one night he when was sleeping. No, she would manipulate anyone who came to investigate, the same way she had manipulated Roy.

Roy. His "father" for all intensive purposes. He hadn't looked him in the eye since it happened. Except for once. And the absolute contempt Jack saw there was enough to make him avoid eye contact ever since. On the night it happened, Roy had come home drunk and ended up in the garage the wrong way. The next morning, broken and still bleeding, Roy had made him take the car down to the mechanic. One arm on the wheel, the other holding his torso together, he had barely been able to see over the dashboard. When he got there, Mike had looked up briefly from his clipboard to tell him in a bored voice that he had something in his teeth. Looking in the side mirror before his 5-mile walk home, he saw that it was blood.

If Roy had ignored him before, he was giving him his full attention now. There seemed to be an endless amount of things to do around the house, and Jack completed all of them, wordlessly, without complaint. Yet still, Roy had been displeased with his work, and physical threats were thinly veiled behind his tirades.

The second blow-up occurred the night of that fifteenth day. The toilet was broken on the second floor, and while Roy was at work, he had been told to fix it. The only problem was that Jack didn't know the first thing about plumbing; that and the fact that Sara had stood silently watching him from the doorway, making him all too aware of how the spilt water made his thin t-shirt cling to his skin.

The door slammed shut, rattling the poorly constructed foundations of the house. Already this was a signal to Jack that something bad was about to happen. Sara slipped away down the hallway and quietly shut the door to her bedroom. He wasn't sure if she'd said a single word to him in two weeks…he certainly hadn't said anything to her. What was there to say? Roy's heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs; suddenly light from the hallway was masked and it seemed as though all that existed in the whole world was that tiny bathroom and its broken toilet.

Later, when he woke up in a mingling puddle of water and blood, and broken shards of porcelain, he wondered sensibly if he was going to die before he could make it to his 18th birthday. He considered moving to his bedroom, but thought maybe he'd wait a little bit longer for the swimming in his head to subside. Maybe he wouldn't even live until tomorrow. The first time had been bad, especially with no painkillers. This time, old and fresh wound bleeding out onto the tiles, a broken rib, possibly a concussion….with no medicine, he didn't see how he could survive. His eyesight went hazy and he felt himself being pulled back into unconsciousness. As the tunnel of black got more and more narrow, a single echoing thought erupted at the back of his mind:

_Please, please. I don't want to die…_

When he woke up later it was dark. He was laying on something soft and as he turned his head, he saw the bright orange illumination of his clock radio proclaiming the time as 3:57 am. He also saw someone sitting on the side of his bed, and he knew immediately it was her. But he was tired. Too tired and sore and too happy to be alive that in this moment, 3:57 am, he didn't care.

"You're awake." She said, not bothering to conceal her voice in a whisper. She saw his eyes flicker over to the door and replied, "He's gone out again. Hopefully this time he remembers to open the garage door." He didn't smile, and when she shifted her weight toward him, he shifted his away. In her new position, the streetlight was hitting her in the face, and he could see her frown. "That's what I thought…" She said, speaking more to herself then to him. She reached into the pocket of her housecoat and pulled out a small orange bottle. He could see the white pills within and felt relief wash over him. He reached out his hand, but she pulled them out of his reach. "I will give them to you," she said "but once I do, you have to give me what I want." She didn't say what that was. He didn't ask. Weighing his options, he pulled himself into a seated position. The clock clicked along. It now displayed 4:00. He reached out his hand again. She gave him the pills, and from his bedside table, a glass of water.

He took his time. He swallowed. He felt the water burning a pathway through his chest. Setting the glass down on the table once more, he leaned forward and slid his hands into her hair. Her eyes widened as he pulled her forward. And as their lips met he saw the red guitar, the explosion. And he wished he were anywhere but here.

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hey, again, sorry for taking so long with this. I feel as though I am perpetually apologizing for taking forever with this story. If my absence makes it seem as though I don't appreciate you patience and willingness to stick with me, then I am so, so very sorry. You have no idea how much your reviews mean to me…especially after that last chapter…I have more time now, and a better idea of where this story is going to go…so if you are still out there, and want me to continue, then I will and it will be a lot faster then last time! Thank you again for all of your support…hopefully this chapter didn't let you down…


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